Lars Gustafsson: Roach

That was the same strange word
that I searched for in a dream
and was unable to find.

I awoke
from a dream of a fish
with red eyes

easy to catch with a piece of chewed bread
on a crooked short nail.
A roach, cause of death for Yvonne

Princess of Burgundy
so much more indolent than the beautiful minnows,
those dancers of the warm water near the shoreline.

Yes, this dream was full
of beauty and dance
and no one in the whole world knew          

that roaches are called roaches.

Tr. Susan W. Howard. Jarring in translation because English roach has several meanings, but here it’s solely the fish. It’s mört in Swedish, which is similar to ”death” in French, which was the language spoken by Yvonne of Burgundy, who didn’t however exist except in a mockingly warped play by the twentieth-century Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. So we are in very literary territory. Gustafsson died earlier this year.